“There was never yet philosopher
That could endure toothache patiently.”
Leonato in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (V.i.35)
You just got to have a sense of humor about it all because there feels like there is a deity some place, a minor godhead figurine, some place, having a good chuckle at us right now. Mercury is heading into a retrograde position this week, but I’m not naming names.
Aries : I did a little research into your chart for this week. There’s just about the oddest amount of stellar gravel causing you no small amount of discomforting problems. There’s just the tiniest hint that this is all going to work, eventually. There’s just the meanest little tickle that you get right now from the planets. You better be grateful for all the Aries in your chart because some other signs might react badly to this situation this week. The errant little Mercury, combined with the rest of the planets visible at sunset are going to do their dead level best to make you uncomfortable. Not miserable, it looks like that feeling is reserved for other signs, but you are going to experience a degree of discomfort this week as the planets exert a little bit of a planetary review this week. It’s Mercury, and it looks like it’s a theme for the next week. Review time.
Taurus : After what you’ve been through lately, you don’t really want to back up and go old over material at a time like this. However, my dear Taurus lover, it’s time to consider this action. I’ve been playing this one piece of music that starts out with the nicest little harp, an angelic sound. And your week looks like it starts out just like this. Of course, the post millennium music is a bit strange, and while this one piece starts out with a melodic strain, just like this week, it quickly decomposes into a hard driving rock beat. The technique is called “looping” and it involves taking a single musical phrase and repeating it over and over. So your week goes from harps to harsh harpsichords, and the tune keeps getting looped back until you get it right. By the end of the week, thanks to this mercurial influence, you’re going to be feeling like you are living in a tape loop stuck playing the same harsh chords over and over. It sounds like you have to hear the message about three or four times until you finally understand what the message actually means — “Loops of Fury.”
Gemini : There is one blond haired, blue eyed Gemini with a precocious mouth, and this one Gemini claims that Mercury is really okay when it’s retrograde. This one Gemini seems to be an anomaly in life. Mercury’s evil backspin is going to take everything that is going on, and slam it into the ground. It’s what a catfish must feel like when it gets caught and drug ashore. Gasping for water, the huge gills pumping air and unable to breathe, the poor old feller has just met his match with the delicious catfish stink bait. Just like that catfish, Gemini needs to be careful about what seems so alluring. A little extra caution is useful this week. Just because someone runs something past you that is so tantalizing, it doesn’t mean that now’s a good time to take the bait. Be careful about what ideas are flaunted right now because ideas are a great bait for catching Gemini’s, and you don’t want to get hooked into going someplace where you don’t really belong, not this week.
Cancer : One of my dear Cancer buddies took one look at a Mercury pattern, listened to some of my advice, and then promptly had an accident at home. I think he slipped while he was cleaning the tub and got nasty little cut from the tap on his scalp. So with this Mercury and Mars and Venus thing all happening in Cancer, right at a Cancer time for birthdays, it’s the little things that Cancer has to watch out for. Like the tap in the tub. Even if you resolve not to go out and engage in any dangerous activity this week, that sort of danger can crop up in the mildest of places. Of course, and I’m sure this note was lost on my Cancer buddy, but the blood did wash off easy, and it was only a slight scalp wound, and he could always comb his hair over the scratch. Of course, I’ve always been told that my scars make me look “ruggedly handsome” but I tend to doubt the sources at times. The point is that this is a week that you can try to avoid the confusion and multiple mishaps associated with everything else going on, or you can just jump right in, and enjoy the confusion. It won’t go the way you want it to, but it will go the way it’s supposed to, this week.
Leo : I want you to get prepared to dig down deep in that wonderful Leo soul that you’ve got. I want you to be prepared to get to the very heart of the matter in that wonderful Leo heart you’ve got. I want you to get ready to get in there with the best of them, because you are a Leo and you are the best, and get prepared to go shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, “mano a mano” with them. It’s the weirdest of the witching hours this week. There is all sorts of strange stuff kicking up in your chart. Mysterious stuff. Unbidden stuff. Strange ideas come up out of no where and bonk you on the head. It’s not really out of nowhere. It’s from the “other side” of your wonderful Leo psyche. It’s like that mythological character who was born out of that deity’s brain, sort of hatched right out of his head. It’s all this stuff kicking around in the sign which comes before you, and it’s making you a little skittish because you can’t figure out where all this stuff is coming from. Relax and blame it all on Mercury going retrograde. That might not be the real problem, but Mercury is convenient scapegoat this week.
Virgo : I sent out a press release one time to announce my arrival in a particular town. Not a large town, a little town in South Texas. So an astrologer from Austin was coming to visit, and the media needed to be there. I didn’t get much of a bite from news team. I didn’t get a lot of attention., There was one tiny problem with the press release, it had the wrong date on it. Since I usually work on weekends, the news cameras all showed up on the press releases’s date: the middle of the week. When I got around to correcting it, the guys in the newsroom had been burned, and for some reason, they all chose to ignore me. Nothing could be worse. This week, make sure all the details are correct. Nothing is worse than being ignored at a time like this. It’s that Mercury thing, and he’s promising to confuse some of the dates on your calendar. You might want to get someone else to take a look at your material before you press “send.”
Libra : Conventional cowboy wisdom suggests that you get back on that horse which just bucked you off. Before the bones begin to ache, before the pain really sets in, perhaps before your bones have been set, jump right back up on that critter who just unloaded you. It’s a great idea. In the rodeo arena of life, this is wonderful advice. There is a pile up of little planets causing trouble for kind hearted Libra this week. Rodeo advice might not be the best stuff to look at. If you do wind up with a mouthful of sawdust and dirt, I might suggest that the concept of getting back on the horse is wonderful. The idea is great. The actual practice, though, might best be left to another week. However you get tossed off the bucking bronco in your life, maybe this isn’t a week to saddle up and try again. Maybe this is a week when you want to take a little inventory of your body parts and decide that you’ll let the horse win this round. It’s not defeat, you might have lost a battle, but you ain’t going to lose the war.
Scorpio : Stock car racing was born from a time when there was little modification to the vehicle. You just rolled one off the showroom floor and took it to the race track for a Sunday afternoon test drive, at over a 100 miles an hour. The nice thing about stock car racing is that it affords the very best of metaphors for the week: racing under a caution flag. The yellow flag means that there is trouble some place, some one else has piled up a car, spun out of control, or leaked a bunch of oil and fuel onto the track. Makes for slick times. With Mercury doing his thing, it’s like racing under the caution flag. If you are a cunning example of a Scorpio, you’d consider this a good time to “pit,” that is, pull in and take on extra fuel, maybe change your tires, that sort of routine maintenance you so don’t lose your position in the field of cars. As long as Mercury is doing his thing in Cancer, consider that you’re racing under a yellow flag. Use this caution time to advance yourself on the track, and remember, go down the straight and hang a left, then go down the straight and hang left. Repeat as needed to win.
Sagittarius : There are weeks that no amount of brilliance is as good as a convenient back door. In some circles, the term back door has an ominous connotation, suggesting secret ways to penetrate computer defenses. I’m referring to a more mundane back door, like the one on the back of this trailer. There are no steps, and the overgrowth is such that slipping out the back door means I wind up in a tangle of vines with little sharp barbs on them. You might just want to clear a path to your back door this week, though, because we’ve got all sorts of weird stuff coming up. I used to worry about getting an invitation to be on a daytime TV talk show. With a week like this, I’m more worried about getting served with some legal paperwork. And I think the image is pretty clear. The charges will be dropped in about three weeks, and until then, when some one comes knocking on the door, especially the guys in bad suits, I might just slip out the back door. It’s a good plan for this week, anyway.
Capricorn : You get off to rousing good start this week. But…. “The best laid plans of mice and men/gang oft a gley/and lea’ us naught but grief and pain/ for promised joy.” (Bobby Burns wrote that ditty, and it fits, too.) Be a little more careful with what you expect out of folks this week. There’s some high hopes in the Capricorn camp, but those high hopes are like counting the money for the big bass tournament before you ever get off on the trip. And that’s not something you can do this week. You’ll find that the concept is good, but the implementation might be a little lacking. Therein is the problem for this week. Great ideas, good attitude, but not quite enough of you to make sure that everything is done correctly. That leads to a degree of frustration. I know you’re planning on winning, but don’t count the money until you have it in your hands.
Aquarius : No doubt you’ve seen the picture of me standing by the black velvet Elvis painting, and in the background, you can see my desk. I cleaned it up for the photo shoot in the trailer. Right now, it’s covered with miscellaneous paperwork, old bills, a few fishing lures and some unanswered letters as well as a computer terminal and keyboard. Sounds like the Aquarius desk this week, too. As long as the planet’s are where they are, you can do one of two things, you can just walk away from the desk and not tend to anything that demands your attention right now, or you can sit yourself down, get out the checkbook, and start making out checks for the folks who need them. (You would want to include a little something for me, wouldn’t you?) There is a myriad of minor details which all demand your attention this week, and it’s like sitting down at the desk and sorting through piles and piles of paperwork, earrings, fishing lures, that odd spinning reel you wanted to fix, and actually doing some of the work. I suggest that you start attending to some of this right now because it looks like you’ve gotten a little behind on the necessary paperwork, and it needs your attention. Now.
Pisces : I’ve detected a certain trend over the years. From the feedback from the land of Pisces, perhaps the pond of Pisces would be a better term, I’ve determined that — according to them — Mercury going retrograde does not affect them at all. I would never doubt my fine Pisces examples of humanity. Never. I know I can trust them to convey exact information for the sake of astrological research. There would be no chance of any obfuscation here at all. And no mixed messages. But that’s what I wonder about because this seems to have an adverse effect on the rest of us, and why does my sampling of Pisces get by unscathed? There are many good things kicking up dust in the heavens for my favorite mutable water sign (Pisces), but there is that cautionary note about the errant little planet’s pattern this week, too. Of course, I’ve been assured numerous times that it won’t effect you at all so I’m not too worried, and Pisces needn’t be, either.
